Knives in the Backs of Martyrs

Two weeks have gone by after the explosion that caused a rift and suspicion among ECPD ranks. Many have officers that were known and respected, regardless of their realm of origin, were killed instantaneously, including the Chief of the Special Crimes Unit, Chief Superintendent Baylor. A memorial service took place a week ago, and honorary titles were given out posthumously to whose who died in vein. Samantha and Bartley were at the service, fully dressed and ill-prepared to let go of the ones that they worked along with.

It was harder on Bartley especially since he despised these kinds of events. He knew he had to do this to respect their honorary duties in service to the force, but also out of sheer respect as a commander to them. Casket after casket were slowly dropped into their holes. Silence illuminated the atmosphere, heavy rain poured down as many close relatives to the dead looked down, or shared wavered sadness.

Baylor's casket was the last to be dropped. His close associates and many other ECPD officers, including Bartley, stood in line and attention as they saluted to a principal leader. The trumpet roared in sympathy, Bartley caught one last glimpse of the casket as it slowly faded onto the hole. It was time to say goodbye to his mentor, a friend he respected.

It was a Monday morning. A fresh new week for the ECPD to start off, but not so balmy for Bartley and what remains of Special Crimes Unit 7. He was at his newly reconstructed office, better and cleaner the last time he was here before it was in shambles by the explosion. He sat down and smelled the fresh paint in his office until he heard a tap from the door, and shouted to come in.

It was Samantha who appeared at the door. She wore differently than last time, wearing a skirt, blue collar, and a suit top. It looked like she was one of those administrative secretary who worked at the administrative area in the station. An odd choice, but Bartley didn't think much of it. Samantha walked up to Bartley and handed him over a file compiled by Samantha herself.

Bartley grabbed the file from Samantha and looked over it. "You wanna sit down?"

"No thank you sir. I'd rather be standing still." Samantha replied in confidence as she didn't want to sit down for some ambiguous reason.

Bartley didn't insist on her to take a seat as he continued to analyze the folder from Samantha. "Summary, please?" Bartley asked as he flickered the first page.

"Uh, well. I looked over the possibilities of what the duffel bag could be. His recent activities indicated that he had been going to the local gym, worked out and all. He doesn't exactly have a scheduled date to go there. He goes whenever."

"I'm guessing his alibi checks out that he had been to the gym on the day of the incident?"

"There were witnesses, footage, and a log with his signature that he signed in and out."

Bartley found this particular scheme unusual and unlike someone for Superintendent Baylor. He looked over the captured footage attached in the folder and took sometime to analyze them, comparing each one. He noticed something odd about his left palm; it looked like he wore a silver bracelet that day. As far as Bartley knows, he never knew Baylor to wear jewelry or so he thought.

He looked at Samantha and passed the folder back to her, but kept one of the attached images and inserted it inside his pocket. He stood up, grabbed his coat from his chair and looked at Samantha as he donned on his coat. "I need you to investigate Baylor further. Check his apartment out."

Samantha looked at him with unknown intentions of what he meant. "Sir? His apartment was already investigated by the Angel's Division. Pretty sure they already checked out the place from top to bottom."

"Check for yourself. Don't let anyone from the Angel's Division or from the ECPD know you were there. I gotta check out something." Bartley said as he left his office, making his way to someone who may help him shed some light onto the photo in question.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Bartley walked towards Pamela's building, knowing that she would have the answers to the photo he had looked over. The silver bracelet caught his attention and by surprise, it was a small discrepancy that Bartley just couldn't ignore. People don't make mistakes until they noticed it, and Bartley was the one noticed it the moment Baylor left this world.

He let himself in the place as Pamela usually didn't mind if he came by with or without her permission. Often at times, Bartley would find her in the counseling room while other times he would find her in the living room, practicing her dark abilities that aren't really as legal within the city. So long as Bartley respects her boundaries, she respects his.

He closed the door inside, looking around Pamela quietly as possible without disturbing whatever she was doing. He went to check out the living room and a woman else on the couch while they watched the television. It didn't look like Pamela since Pamela had gray hair on her, but he went closer to see who it was. The woman at the couch was aware of Bartley's premise and promptly paused the TV. They turned around and looked at Bartley, their eyes locked and Bartley knew instantly who this person was.

"Wolf." The woman said

"Mary." Barley said as he called out the woman's name.

His anxiety started to crawl around his body, a fear that he didn't want to endure since he was a bit frighten of her. Mary deserved the name of the infamous "Bloody Mary" since she was a true demonic caster, a dangerous one that Bartley didn't want to be near.

"What brings you here?"

"Just- just to see Pamela. Ask her a few things."

Bloody Mary snickered to herself, in doubt of what Bartley sought at Pamela's place was probably more than what he is just asking for. She turned around and resumed watching her TV.

"So, um. Do you know where she is?" Bartley asked softly, but he knew Bloody Mary could hear her from a good distance.

"In the basement love."

Bartley began to head down the basement after Bloody Mary told where Pamela was, but she called out Bartley's name before he went down to say something to him.

"If you sought to harm my dear Pamela, you will endure the most insufferable harm to your mind." Bloody Mary said in a distorted voice at Bartley, her head twitching randomly, and eyes leaked blood.

Bartley sure was slightly more terrified and nodded at her as he began to head towards the basement at a pacing speed. He walked down the stairs to find Pamela cleaning up the basement, and reorganizing her old black magic books.

"Hey, you got a minute?" Bartley said as she smiled at Pamela who was not surprised to see him.

"Oh, hey. What's Mr. Traumatized by my auntie doing here?" Pamela said and teased at Bartley who knew that he was terrified beyond when every time Bloody Mary was in the building.

"I- I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. Now, I'm quite a bit busy here, but you need something?" Pamela asked wondrously as she flailed her right arm to open a portal, and dumped most of her unneeded books in the basement. The books that entered the portal were teleported to Bloody Mary's shop at the storage room, where she can sell them off from there.

Bartley took out the photo from his pocket and showed it to Pamela while pointing to the silver bracelet that Baylor had wore. Pamela took a peek on the pointed object and glared at it. Bartley usually can tell that she knows something about it.

Pamela placed down the books she held and closed the portal she opened. She placed aside the book and took the photo off of Bartley, looking at it more in detail.

"How certain are you that Superintendent Baylor is dead?"

Bartley looked at her as she said it in a cryptic tone.

"One hundred percent. Corner confirmed Baylor's burn body at the scene .. why?"

Pamela looked at Bartley and back at the photo. She took of her glasses and brushed her hair back, looking at Bartley's eyes with seriousness.

"It's probably nothing, but .. we may need to consider the possibility that he may not be dead. Maybe."

"What makes you say that?"

————————————————————————————————————————————

Baylor's home seemed to be lifeless as Samantha watched the house for almost ten minutes after she arrived. It seemed there was no one there to keep an eye out on the place. She had to be careful about the place though, there may be alarms or security cameras in the place that she was unaware of. Fortunately for her, she obtained Baylor's keys from the evidence room and managed to sneak it out without any notice.

The house was just outside a suburban area, not many people pass by the house since the road there lead to a forest area that the ECPD do patrol due to its disturbing past. The forest had been an area for murderers as a dumping site since the early 1920s. Things got worse when the infamous Eden Ripper dumped their victim's body at the tree as some sort of 'ritualism' for the fallen angels.

Samantha approached the house and carefully intruded inside as she unlocked the doors with the keys she took. The place was clean and spotless. She noticed the curtain's at the doors looked similar to that of her old place back in North Dakota, which also made her realize that Baylor had a wife.

She wasn't sure if the wife was home, but she knew instinctively, from Bartley a few days ago, that Baylor's wife lived somewhere else after they had been separated. She was reluctantly relieved otherwise she would've encountered the widow in an awkward situation. Samantha headed to the stairs and checked around the first floor.

The first room she entered was a small room, a library it would seem as indicated by the stacks of books from top to bottom. She checked the library first to see if there was anything there. The shelves reached up to the ceiling, books nearly filled all the shelves except in one particular that was at the far end. It was odd since the rest of the shelves were filled, perhaps this was a shelf that Baylor was trying to stockpile? Samantha took a peak around that shelf from book to book, and stack to stack. She gotten no where and nearly decided to check on the other rooms until she noticed one of the books was much more darker than the rest, which had followed a similar pattern.

She curiously decided to pull it until she heard a noise behind her, instinctively pulling out her gun at pointing at it. It was the shelf that made the noise and slid open to reveal a hidden area. Samantha was surprised she discovered it, and slowly approached the entrance with caution while gripped tightly onto her weapon.

"Woah .. this is not good." Samantha said to herself as she entered the secret room, revealing tons of unusual albeit disturbing objects that Baylor had kept in there.

It was a small room filled with unusual symbols castrated on the walls. It looked like the color of crimson, but something tells Samantha that it didn't appear to be paint. She investigated the room further and finding a book on the table that looked similar to the book that her uncle gave to her. The book was much larger than hers and appeared to have more information and a set of readings in it.

"Angelus Oculus." Samantha said as she read the words aloud in Latin of the book's cover. She knew Latin a bit to know that it roughly translated to 'The Eye of Angel'. She didn't understand what the word mean, but didn't hesitate to spend much of her time in this creepy place.

She got what she came for and decided to take the book with her. Samantha felt something off unnerving about the place as she exited out of the secret room. She turned around and noticed a person in a black robe, their face covered and standing in the room that they were in. They didn't say a word nor did they move as Samantha's eyes widen in surprise. She didn't had her gun as she left in the car. Within seconds, she decided to book it out of there as she ran towards the door. She ran to the stairs and down, gasping and panting for air as she reached the door and got out. She didn't turn around as she was busy making for it towards her car.

As she got outside of the house, she noticed more men in black robes left and right but not by her car. She didn't stop to look and knew she was in grave danger. She dodged their attempts to block her and managed to reach to her car, she got inside and tried to get out of there as she attempted to get the engine running. The black robed people stared blindly at her and slowly approached her car. The engines roared as she turned on the ignition and got out of there in the nick of time. She watched the black robed people at rear mirror, watching her as she went.

Without looking at the road in front of her, she drove through a red light and without noticed collided with another car, causing her to lose control and her head to struck against the wheel in full force. The car spinned out of the control within seconds until it stopped and hit a pole, the other car backing up and driving away. Samantha's car fumed white smoke, her head ached and bled, and slowly became unconscious as she hired distant sirens closed in on her.